Dental auxiliaries wanted! Please apply.

Abstract

This paper reviews changes over the last decade in the numbers and demographic characteristics of dental auxiliary students, as well as changes in levels of financial compensation for dental auxiliaries. Responding to dental team workforce shortages reported by dentists across the nation, the ADA, state and local dental and dental team organizations have been working to promote recruitment and retention programs for dental assisting dental hygiene, and laboratory technology. By now you have heard about it, read about it, and probably have been part of it. Dental practices are changing and dentists are eagerly seeking increasing numbers of auxiliaries. But in reality, fewer and fewer dental assistants, dental hygienists, and dental technicians are available, and that situation is unlikely to change. An earlier series of reports in The Dental Assistant reviewed auxiliary training programs, salaries, changing working arrangements, and related developments occurring in the 1970s through the mid-1980s. The following presentation updates this review through 1990 and continues to emphasize the dwindling numbers of dental auxiliaries and their lack of adequate financial compensation.